Stephen Selka
Biographic Data
| ID | 126242 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Stephen Selka |
| GIVEN NAMES | Stephen |
| FAMILY NAME | Selka |
| SIGNATURE | SELKA S |
| AFFILIATIONS | Indiana University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-8044-6154 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 17 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 76 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 17 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2004 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2022 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Positionality: Identity, Standpoint and the Limits (and Possibilities) of Fieldwork
This article discusses the concept of positionality, which challenges the notion of a neutral, disembodied observer. For ethnographers, thinking about positionality means to attend to how fieldwork happens through interpersonal relationships that play out in complex and uneven social spaces. Drawing on examples from my own ethnographic fieldwork in Bahia, I consider how positionality is both limiting and enabling, and I address the challenges of …
Condomblé Público Revisitado
Neste artigo, enfatizo que a política dos terreiros surge não apenas como resposta à hostilidade evangélica, mas também por meio de vários tipos de engajamentos e interações entre o terreiro e o público - o que Paul Johnson (2005) chama de "candomblé público". Dou especial atenção a um ponto que muitas vezes falta nas discussões sobre como as religiões de matriz africana aparecem na esfera pública: tanto por causa da difamação quanto da apropriaç…
Afro-Catholicism in Latin America
This article provides a historical and ethnographic overview of Afro-Catholicism in Latin America. For the purposes of this article, "Afro-Catholicism" encompasses the wide variety of ways that people of African descent have practiced or engaged with Catholicism. Much of the article focuses on Brazil, but it also draws on the literature on Afro-Catholicism in Haiti and Cuba both to highlight similarities and differences throughout Latin America a…
Black Catholicism
This roundtable features six scholarly assessments of the historical and theoretical challenges that emerge when we consider the participation of African and African-descended peoples in the Catholic tradition. The subject of Black Catholicism is garnering new attention from researchers for several reasons. Although the presence of Christianity in West-Central Africa is usually associated with European conquest and colonialism, it is instructive …
Religion and the Transnational Imagination
The transnational turn has generated new ways of thinking about borders and phenomena that cross them, including religion. Nevertheless, there is little agreement on what kinds of processes the terms “transnationalism” and “globalization” refer to and to what extent they represent something new. As the articles in this special issue examine, however, these terms refer not simply to actual changes in geographical scale but to distinct ways of imag…
Cityscapes and contact zones: Christianity, Candomblé, and African heritage tourism in Brazil
In this article the author explores the ways in which Catholic, evangelical, and Candomblé actors produce competing framings that shape encounters taking place in the city of Cachoeira in the Brazilian state of Bahia. The framing of Cachoeira as a site of heritage tourism – one where local religious practices are read as part of the African heritage and attractions for African American ‘roots tourists’ – obscures as much as it reveals. This is no…
New Religious Movements in Brazil
This article provides an overview of the Brazilian religious landscape and an introduction to this special issue on new religious movements in Brazil. I stress how the Brazilian religious landscape, although often imagined as a place of religious syncretism and cultural mixture, is crosscut by an array of boundaries, tensions and antagonisms, including ones grounded in race and class. The article outlines the major topics and problems taken up by…
Books Reviewed
Morality in the religious marketplace: Evangelical Christianity, Candomblé, and the struggle for moral distinction in Brazil
Most of the research on the growth of evangelical Christianity in Latin America and elsewhere has focused on the distinctive products that evangelicals bring to the "religious marketplace" and on other competitive advantages that evangelical churches have over their religious rivals. Alternatively, on the basis of research among evangelical Christians and practitioners of African-derived Candomblé in northeastern Brazil, I examine the role of dis…
Another Arabesque: Syrian-Lebanese Ethnicity in Neoliberal Brazil by John Tofik Karam
The Sorcery of Color: Identity, Race and Gender in Brazil by Elisa Larkin Nascimento
The Sisterhood of Boa Morte in Brazil: Harmonious Mixture, Black Resistance, and the Politics of Religious Practice
Este artigo analisa a relação entre política e religião no Recôncavo Baiano, região do Nordeste brasileiro, a partir da observação da festa afro-católica da Irmandade da Nossa Senhora da Boa Morte. No Brasil, religiões de origem africana têm sido consideradas exemplos idealizados de mistura cultural, especialmente quando combinadas às tradições européias. Entretanto, e mais recentemente, militantes que lutam contra desigualdades raciais têm tomad…
Religion and the Politics of Ethnic Identity in Bahia, Brazil
Brazilians of African descent draw upon both Christian and African diasporic religions to construct their racial identities in a variety of intriguing ways. Focusing on the Recôncavo region of north-eastern Brazil—known for its rich Afro-Brazilian traditions and as a center of racial consciousness in the country—this book provides an ethnography that examines what it means to be black in Brazil. It examines how Evangelical Protestantism, Candombl…
Mediated Authenticity: Tradition, Modernity, and Postmodernity in Brazilian Candomblé
This article explores the interweaving of the traditional, the modern, and the postmodern into the practice of Candomblé, an African-derived religion of Brazil. Multiple and competing perspectives on what is traditional or legitimate Candomblé practice coexist today. Over the course of the twentieth century, such claims about authenticity have been staked by an increasingly wider variety of agents—including government officials, social activists,…
Competitive Spirits: Latin America's New Religious Economy
Andrew Chesnut’s Competitive Spirits is an ambitious book that draws upon an impressive array of research on religion in Latin America. Ranging in focus from Brazil to Mexico and many places in between, Chesnut develops a unifying argument that can help us make sense of Latin America’s celebrated religious complexity. He employs a set of economic metaphors to analyze the historical shift from Catholic monopoly to free and competitive religious ma…
Ethnoreligious Identity Politics in Bahia, Brazil
In the Brazilian state of Bahia today, Afro-Brazilian activists are confronting racial inequalities and racist practices that until recently many Brazilians refused to acknowledge. Many groups engaging these problems are religious, and ethnic affirmation based in African-derived religions such as Candombl6 is at the heart of the black consciousness movement. Christian organizations, however, vary widely in their views about such affirmations of A…
The Devil and the Land of the Holy Cross: Witchcraft, Slavery and Popular Religion in Colonial Brazil
Book review of The Devil and the Land of the Holy Cross: Witchcraft, Slavery and Popular Religion in Colonial Brazil. Laura de Mello e Souza. Translated by Diane Grosklaus Whitty. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2003. xxiii + 350 pp., tables, notes, glossary, bibliography, index. ISBN 0-292-7023601
The Devil and the Land of the Holy Cross: Witchcraft, Slavery and Popular Religion in Colonial Brazil
Book review of The Devil and the Land of the Holy Cross: Witchcraft, Slavery and Popular Religion in Colonial Brazil. Laura de Mello e Souza. Translated by Diane Grosklaus Whitty. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2003. xxiii + 350 pp., tables, notes, glossary, bibliography, index. ISBN 0-292-7023601
Morality in the religious marketplace: Evangelical Christianity, Candomblé, and the struggle for moral distinction in Brazil
Most of the research on the growth of evangelical Christianity in Latin America and elsewhere has focused on the distinctive products that evangelicals bring to the "religious marketplace" and on other competitive advantages that evangelical churches have over their religious rivals. Alternatively, on the basis of research among evangelical Christians and practitioners of African-derived Candomblé in northeastern Brazil, I examine the role of dis…
Ethnoreligious Identity Politics in Bahia, Brazil
In the Brazilian state of Bahia today, Afro-Brazilian activists are confronting racial inequalities and racist practices that until recently many Brazilians refused to acknowledge. Many groups engaging these problems are religious, and ethnic affirmation based in African-derived religions such as Candombl6 is at the heart of the black consciousness movement. Christian organizations, however, vary widely in their views about such affirmations of A…
Mediated Authenticity: Tradition, Modernity, and Postmodernity in Brazilian Candomblé
This article explores the interweaving of the traditional, the modern, and the postmodern into the practice of Candomblé, an African-derived religion of Brazil. Multiple and competing perspectives on what is traditional or legitimate Candomblé practice coexist today. Over the course of the twentieth century, such claims about authenticity have been staked by an increasingly wider variety of agents—including government officials, social activists,…
Black Catholicism
This roundtable features six scholarly assessments of the historical and theoretical challenges that emerge when we consider the participation of African and African-descended peoples in the Catholic tradition. The subject of Black Catholicism is garnering new attention from researchers for several reasons. Although the presence of Christianity in West-Central Africa is usually associated with European conquest and colonialism, it is instructive …
Cityscapes and contact zones: Christianity, Candomblé, and African heritage tourism in Brazil
In this article the author explores the ways in which Catholic, evangelical, and Candomblé actors produce competing framings that shape encounters taking place in the city of Cachoeira in the Brazilian state of Bahia. The framing of Cachoeira as a site of heritage tourism – one where local religious practices are read as part of the African heritage and attractions for African American ‘roots tourists’ – obscures as much as it reveals. This is no…
The Sisterhood of Boa Morte in Brazil: Harmonious Mixture, Black Resistance, and the Politics of Religious Practice
Este artigo analisa a relação entre política e religião no Recôncavo Baiano, região do Nordeste brasileiro, a partir da observação da festa afro-católica da Irmandade da Nossa Senhora da Boa Morte. No Brasil, religiões de origem africana têm sido consideradas exemplos idealizados de mistura cultural, especialmente quando combinadas às tradições européias. Entretanto, e mais recentemente, militantes que lutam contra desigualdades raciais têm tomad…
The Devil and the Land of the Holy Cross: Witchcraft, Slavery and Popular Religion in Colonial Brazil
Book review of The Devil and the Land of the Holy Cross: Witchcraft, Slavery and Popular Religion in Colonial Brazil. Laura de Mello e Souza. Translated by Diane Grosklaus Whitty. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2003. xxiii + 350 pp., tables, notes, glossary, bibliography, index. ISBN 0-292-7023601
Ethnoreligious Identity Politics in Bahia, Brazil
In the Brazilian state of Bahia today, Afro-Brazilian activists are confronting racial inequalities and racist practices that until recently many Brazilians refused to acknowledge. Many groups engaging these problems are religious, and ethnic affirmation based in African-derived religions such as Candombl6 is at the heart of the black consciousness movement. Christian organizations, however, vary widely in their views about such affirmations of A…
Religion and the Politics of Ethnic Identity in Bahia, Brazil
Brazilians of African descent draw upon both Christian and African diasporic religions to construct their racial identities in a variety of intriguing ways. Focusing on the Recôncavo region of north-eastern Brazil—known for its rich Afro-Brazilian traditions and as a center of racial consciousness in the country—this book provides an ethnography that examines what it means to be black in Brazil. It examines how Evangelical Protestantism, Candombl…
Mediated Authenticity: Tradition, Modernity, and Postmodernity in Brazilian Candomblé
This article explores the interweaving of the traditional, the modern, and the postmodern into the practice of Candomblé, an African-derived religion of Brazil. Multiple and competing perspectives on what is traditional or legitimate Candomblé practice coexist today. Over the course of the twentieth century, such claims about authenticity have been staked by an increasingly wider variety of agents—including government officials, social activists,…
Competitive Spirits: Latin America's New Religious Economy
Andrew Chesnut’s Competitive Spirits is an ambitious book that draws upon an impressive array of research on religion in Latin America. Ranging in focus from Brazil to Mexico and many places in between, Chesnut develops a unifying argument that can help us make sense of Latin America’s celebrated religious complexity. He employs a set of economic metaphors to analyze the historical shift from Catholic monopoly to free and competitive religious ma…
Another Arabesque: Syrian-Lebanese Ethnicity in Neoliberal Brazil by John Tofik Karam
The Sorcery of Color: Identity, Race and Gender in Brazil by Elisa Larkin Nascimento
The Sisterhood of Boa Morte in Brazil: Harmonious Mixture, Black Resistance, and the Politics of Religious Practice
Este artigo analisa a relação entre política e religião no Recôncavo Baiano, região do Nordeste brasileiro, a partir da observação da festa afro-católica da Irmandade da Nossa Senhora da Boa Morte. No Brasil, religiões de origem africana têm sido consideradas exemplos idealizados de mistura cultural, especialmente quando combinadas às tradições européias. Entretanto, e mais recentemente, militantes que lutam contra desigualdades raciais têm tomad…
Morality in the religious marketplace: Evangelical Christianity, Candomblé, and the struggle for moral distinction in Brazil
Most of the research on the growth of evangelical Christianity in Latin America and elsewhere has focused on the distinctive products that evangelicals bring to the "religious marketplace" and on other competitive advantages that evangelical churches have over their religious rivals. Alternatively, on the basis of research among evangelical Christians and practitioners of African-derived Candomblé in northeastern Brazil, I examine the role of dis…
New Religious Movements in Brazil
This article provides an overview of the Brazilian religious landscape and an introduction to this special issue on new religious movements in Brazil. I stress how the Brazilian religious landscape, although often imagined as a place of religious syncretism and cultural mixture, is crosscut by an array of boundaries, tensions and antagonisms, including ones grounded in race and class. The article outlines the major topics and problems taken up by…
Books Reviewed
Religion and the Transnational Imagination
The transnational turn has generated new ways of thinking about borders and phenomena that cross them, including religion. Nevertheless, there is little agreement on what kinds of processes the terms “transnationalism” and “globalization” refer to and to what extent they represent something new. As the articles in this special issue examine, however, these terms refer not simply to actual changes in geographical scale but to distinct ways of imag…
Cityscapes and contact zones: Christianity, Candomblé, and African heritage tourism in Brazil
In this article the author explores the ways in which Catholic, evangelical, and Candomblé actors produce competing framings that shape encounters taking place in the city of Cachoeira in the Brazilian state of Bahia. The framing of Cachoeira as a site of heritage tourism – one where local religious practices are read as part of the African heritage and attractions for African American ‘roots tourists’ – obscures as much as it reveals. This is no…
Black Catholicism
This roundtable features six scholarly assessments of the historical and theoretical challenges that emerge when we consider the participation of African and African-descended peoples in the Catholic tradition. The subject of Black Catholicism is garnering new attention from researchers for several reasons. Although the presence of Christianity in West-Central Africa is usually associated with European conquest and colonialism, it is instructive …
Afro-Catholicism in Latin America
This article provides a historical and ethnographic overview of Afro-Catholicism in Latin America. For the purposes of this article, "Afro-Catholicism" encompasses the wide variety of ways that people of African descent have practiced or engaged with Catholicism. Much of the article focuses on Brazil, but it also draws on the literature on Afro-Catholicism in Haiti and Cuba both to highlight similarities and differences throughout Latin America a…
Condomblé Público Revisitado
Neste artigo, enfatizo que a política dos terreiros surge não apenas como resposta à hostilidade evangélica, mas também por meio de vários tipos de engajamentos e interações entre o terreiro e o público - o que Paul Johnson (2005) chama de "candomblé público". Dou especial atenção a um ponto que muitas vezes falta nas discussões sobre como as religiões de matriz africana aparecem na esfera pública: tanto por causa da difamação quanto da apropriaç…
Positionality: Identity, Standpoint and the Limits (and Possibilities) of Fieldwork
This article discusses the concept of positionality, which challenges the notion of a neutral, disembodied observer. For ethnographers, thinking about positionality means to attend to how fieldwork happens through interpersonal relationships that play out in complex and uneven social spaces. Drawing on examples from my own ethnographic fieldwork in Bahia, I consider how positionality is both limiting and enabling, and I address the challenges of …
Sociology (14 works) · Political science (10 works) · Law (9 works) · Religion and Society in Latin America (9 works) · History (8 works) · Philosophy (8 works) · Gender Studies (7 works) · History (7 works) · Religion, Society, and Development (7 works) · Aesthetics (6 works)